The 120 mile daily driving range fits 98% of the US drivers:



Aptera vs. GM Volt

From some of the snippets of interview that I've read, Aptera is going to use a smaller A123 battery than the Volt. About half the capacity, at only 10 kWH, and yet is projected to go 120 miles before recharging. The Volt at 20 kWH goes only 40 miles.

At my current price of $0.18/kWH, the Aptera would cost 1.5 cents per mile while the Volt would cost 9.0 cents per mile, 6 times more expensive.

Aptera costs $27K while Volt costs $40K.

What will happen if a significant percentage of the CA population moved to these vehicles over the next 4-5 years, and the electrical utility grid system has not been upgraded to accomodate increased usage? I'm not sure what the daily/weekly load would be for a vehicle, but I imagine it would be more than the offset created by using CFLs. What a potential mess, considering the current shortfalls.

Just a thought. I imagine all areas have the potential to be affected if this issue is not addressed. Barbara

Good Question Barbara!

Well for one, you can recharge during the off peak times which is at night time when the electric grid is not in heavy use and the electricity is very cheap.

Hopefully, solar will become really cheaper within the next 3 years, just about the time when these vehicles start to roll out of production. Power is generated from your home during the peak demand time and is pumped into the grid and price is higher, and during the evening when you recharge, you are using power at a cheaper price, which would really be cool to your pocket.

And also, there are very promising leap frog developments in ultra-capacitors industry that a 5 minute charging from specialized stations will be viable to store enough power for a 250 mile drive.

And here are some answers from the experts:


Will plug-in hybrids stress the grid?
Posted by Michael Kanellos

Plug-in hybrids are coming. General Motors, Tesla Motors, Fisker Automotive and Toyota are all coming out with gas-electric cars that can be charged from a socket.

The question now is can the grid handle it. The latest voice on the debate, Stan Hadley of the Cooling, Heating and Power Technologies Program at Oak Ridge National Laboratories, says it won't be easy. Hadley examined 182 scenarios on how plug-ins might be used in different regions in the U.S. between 2020 and 2030. Hadley assumed a 25 percent penetration of plug-ins by 2020.

In a worst case scenario, Hadley postulated that the U.S. would need 160 new power plants to handle the requirements of these cars. The worst case scenario, though, assumes that the millions of plug-in owners would want to charge their car at 5 p.m., the tail end of peak power demand.

In a best case scenario, where drivers charged their cars after 10 p.m. and smart grid technologies staggered charging times, the U.S. would need zero to eight new power plants.

Zero to 160 is a big swing, but Hadley warns that you have to accommodate human nature. Electricity costs less at night, so individuals will be incented to charge their cars then. But you also can't control everyone's behavior.

"It might prove extremely difficult to force consumers to charge their cars during some specified period of time," he wrote in his report. Continued, repeated charging could also stress the infrastructure of the grid, he added.

Overall, Hadley concluded that nearly every region in the country would have to beef up its electrical capacity. Electricity prices would also rise, by 1.2 to 2.7 percent in the best case scenarios to 141 to 297 percent in the worst case scenarios. The price hikes also depend on the size of the batteries used in the cars.

In Hadley's analysis, plug-ins could end up producing more carbon dioxide than efficient standard hybrids. But a plug-in hybrid is always better than driving a regular car.

"The best thing about plug-in hybrids is that they open us up to non-oil," he said in a phone conference. "But there are questions. Hybrids do a pretty good job themselves." Hadley isn't alone in his skepticism of plug-ins. "Plug-in hybrids are irrelevant because they are too expensive. Unless you can make 500 million or 800 million of those, it won't matter," said noted VC Vinod Khosla recently. Plug-ins and electric cars, though, have a lot more adherents right now than detractors. It will take more information and studies to figure out who is right on this one.

Last year, the Pacific Northwest National Labs said that you could convert 73 percent of the cars, trucks and vans on the road in the U.S. to plug-ins and the grid, as it currently exists, could handle it. PNNL scientists, however, said that their study depended on night time charging and that it still needed to study the impact on the grid of sustained charging.

And more recent answers, which in summary is No, it won't crash the grid.

Will plug-in hybrids crash the grid? Duke Energy says no
Posted by Martin LaMonica

Duke Energy and smart grid company GridPoint said on Thursday that they have found a way for people to charge plug-in hybrid cars in a way that won't bring the power grid to its knees.

The companies said that they have completed a test using GridPoint's SmartGrid Platform device to charge up cars after 10 p.m.

The timing of when during the day plug-in hybrid cars are charged is crucial.

One of many plug-ins, Chevy's Volt due in 2010.
(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET Networks)

Oak Bridge National Laboratories earlier this month released a study that found that timing is everything when it comes to plug-in hybrids.

In the worst-case scenario, the United States would need to build 160 new power plants to accommodate plug-in hybrids. That's if people charge their cars at 5 p.m., at the tail end of the daily peak power demand on electricity grid.

But if cars were charged starting after 10 p.m. using smart grid technologies to stagger the timing, the U.S. would need between zero and eight new power plants, according to the study's author, Stan Hadley.

Duke Energy engineers did exactly that. Using GridPoint's technology, they started to charge plug-in hybrids at 10 p.m., rather than the moment car owners plugged them in.

"Smart charging is an essential capability for Duke and all electric utilities as PHEVs (plug-in hybrid electric vehicles) enter the market. Through this capability, we're able to reduce stress on the grid during peak periods and keep rates low," said David Mohler, chief technology officer of Duke Energy, in a statement. Mohler joined the board of GridPoint last October.

In a previous interview with CNET News.com, GridPoint's Chief Operating Officer Karl Lewis said that U.S. utilities are not at all prepared for the stress that the anticipated growth of plug-in hybrids will put on the grid.

"If suddenly you have 20,000 or 30,000 rechargeable cars--with maybe 50,000 in a few years--plugging into the grid at night, utilities have to react to that or you'll have serious problems," Lewis said in an October interview. "You see plug-in hybrids becoming a big issue; it's a tidal wave coming at utilities."

Separately, GridPoint announced on Thursday that it has raised $15 million from Quercus Trust and has expanded its board with prominent people, including Robert Danziger; Paul Feldman, chairman of the Midwest ISO; T.J. Glauthier, former deputy secretary of energy; R. James Woolsey, former CIA director; and Daniel Yergin, chairman of CERA.

To date, GridPoint has raised $102 million.

the key is that, if ever the Plug-in vehicles started to be accepted by the market, it is not an overnight or sudden surge in their connectivity. It will be gradual buildup of the cars into the market. The US should be able to foresee problems and debug them before these cars go mainstream. There is time to study and adjust the manufacturing problems and also the power sourcing problems.

I figured it would take between 15 to 25 years for the plug-ins to dominate the current fleet of Internal Combustion Engines.

God forbid that our politicians would pass laws to ban the Internal Combustion Engines!

News from CNET
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-9960585-54.html?tag=cd.blog

[b]A two-year payback for buyers of future hybrids?[b]
Posted by Martin LaMonica


Car battery company EnerDel predicts that consumers will start getting a two-year payback on hybrid electric cars, once a new generation of batteries are mass-produced.

Charles Gassenheimer, the chairman of parent company Ener1, gave a presentation at the Jefferies Global Clean Technology Conference on Thursday in New York, where he said lithium ion batteries in development will bring costs down substantially.



(Credit: CNET Networks)

He said EnerDel intends to have a manufacturing line operating in 2010 that is capable of making 300,000 car batteries a year for hybrid electric vehicles that run partially on a battery and partially on an internal combustion engine.

With gasoline prices at about $4 per gallon, current market conditions would enable a person upgrading from an SUV to a Toyota Prius to recoup the initial cost in about seven years, according to a Wall Street Journal column Wednesday.

That figure subtracts the money received from unloading a tough-to-sell SUV. (See this online calculator at Fueleconomy.gov for a more general assessment.)

Gassenheimer at EnerDel said long-sought advances in lithium ion battery technology can bring that payback period down to fewer than two years. The auto industry is following what the consumer electronics business did in the early 1990s, when it moved from nickel-based batteries to lithium.

"Why we're shifting to lithium from nickel is because it's half the size, half the weight, and two times the energy density. Most important is a substantial reduction in cost," he said.

The company has a deal to supply car batteries to Think Global in the "2009-2010 time frame" for its all-electric towncar. Gassenheimer predicted that EnerDel will sign on to supply two more automakers with batteries before the end of this year.

EnerDel is designing batteries for hybrid electric vehicles like the Prius, as well as plug-in hybrids, which use the internal combustion engine to charge the battery that runs the car.

Gassenheimer claimed that the company's battery chemistry and design are safe, and promise better battery life and performance. A lithium ion cell phone battery can only take half its original charge after two years. But EnerDel batteries maintain the same capacity after 300,000 cycles, the equivalent of 10 years of life, he said.

Farther out, supplying utilities with energy storage "could be bigger than the auto market in front of us today," Gassenheimer claimed. Specifically, he said utilities need ways to store electricity generated by variable renewable sources, wind and solar power.

There are several other battery companies moving into the electric-vehicle market, some of which are using lithium-based batteries, while others, such as PowerGenix, are using nickel zinc because it promises lower costs than lithium ion.

Gassenheimer said that by 2011, there will be 75 car models with lithium ion batteries.

"It's pretty clear some real players are starting to commit real dollars to this space," Gassenheimer said.

Here's a 2004 Survey, note of the word one-way.

3.3 Million Americans are "Stretch Commuters" Traveling at Least 50 Miles One-Way to Work

Wednesday, May 12, 2004 - About 3.3 million Americans travel 50 miles or more one way to get to work - and they commute these distances 329 million times a year, according to National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) findings released today by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS).

Of the 61.6 billion commutes to and/or from work each year, just under one out of every 200 trips is a "stretch commute."

Who is a "stretch commuter?"

"Stretch commuters" are mostly male. Women - 52 percent of the population - only make 16 percent of "stretch commuting" trips.

Nearly three out of five "stretch commuting" trips are made by someone from a household with an annual income of at least $50,000. Slightly more than two out of five U.S. households earn that much. Five out of six "stretch commutes" are made by workers in manufacturing, construction, professional, managerial or technical jobs. By comparison, those in the sales and administrative workforce make considerably fewer "stretch commute" trips.

"Stretch commutes" are disproportionately rural - two out of every five "stretch commutes" start in rural areas. Eight out of 10 (81 percent) "stretch commutes" are 50 to 99 miles in length one way. For these commuters, "stretch commuting" is nearly an everyday occurrence - about two-thirds of the 50- to 99-mile one-way commutes are made at least four days each week.

While one out of five (19 percent) "stretch commutes" is at least 100 miles, more than one in 20 (six percent) can be called "super-stretch commutes," trips to work of 200 miles or more, one-way.

Click here for the complete article:
http://www.bts.gov/press_releases/2004/bts010_04/html/bts010_04.html